TheBlock
Franklin Templeton and Payward, the parent company of Kraken, will collaborate on developing new onchain investment products that tokenize traditional financial instruments, the two firms said. The partnership brings together a global asset manager with roughly $1.5 trillion in assets under management and one of the largest US crypto exchanges, focusing on infrastructure for putting TradFi products onchain.
"What collaborations like this one unlock is a new class of products that wouldn't have been possible even three years ago," said Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi, framing the deal as a structural step rather than a product launch.
Why it matters
Franklin Templeton has been one of the most active traditional asset managers in tokenization — its Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund was among the first mutual fund products to move onchain, and the firm has continued to file for blockchain-related structures since. Pairing that institutional product expertise with Payward's exchange-side distribution and custody stack targets the missing link in tokenization rollouts: regulated, audited product on the front end, with the rails to actually reach crypto-native investors on the back end.
Market impact
For the tokenization sector, the deal is a second-order validation signal — the most-watched metric remains the slow grind of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization TVL, which has been compounding but still sits in the low double-digit billions. A Franklin Templeton product with native distribution into Kraken's user base would be one of the cleaner pipelines from TradFi mandates to onchain settlement yet assembled, and the structure competitors will be reading closely over the next quarter.
Frequently asked questions
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What is Franklin Templeton announcing with Payward?
The two firms will collaborate on developing new onchain investment products that tokenize traditional financial instruments, pairing Franklin Templeton's asset management expertise with Payward's exchange and custody infrastructure.
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Who is Payward?
Payward is the parent company of Kraken, one of the largest US crypto exchanges. Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi is the public voice on this collaboration.
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Has Franklin Templeton done tokenization before?
Yes. Its Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund was among the first mutual fund products to move onchain, and the firm has continued building blockchain-related structures since.
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What is TradFi tokenization?
TradFi tokenization is the process of putting traditional financial instruments — money market funds, bonds, equities, and similar products — onchain as blockchain-based tokens that can be settled and held in crypto-native wallets.
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Why does the Kraken distribution angle matter?
It gives a regulated TradFi product a built-in pipeline into a large crypto-native user base that already has the wallets and rails to actually hold and trade tokenized assets, which previous rollouts have lacked.
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